[1.3] Sidra's Necromancing Ranger of Chaos (Poison Arrow) Videos/Atziri capable

This is a complex build, and I did not write my guide explaining a lot of mechanics - I just assumed people would take a peek at my gear and understand what's going on. If you are less experienced at the game, and given the complexity of the build...that was probably a poor assumption to make on my part. To explain gearing and what stats to look for - it's best to understand the 3 keystones.

1) Ondar's Guile. This looks at your chance to evade, and doubles it versus ranged attacks. In order for it to work - you need evasion. And the more you have the better it is. As it is also the first keystone you get - you want to start the game with evasion based gear while also running Grace.

2) Eldritch Battery. This takes all of your Energy Shield and converts it into mana, enabling a much larger mana pool than you could otherwise get. In order for it it work, though...you need Energy Shield. So while you can start with evasion only gear - once you get this keystone you want Evasion/ES gear. If you look at my gear each of my pieces of equipment, except my helm, are EV/ES. It also means that any + Energy Shield on accessories, (or +int which increases ES) is useful if you can find it

3) Mind Over Matter. This should be the very next keystone you take after Ethereal Battery. It takes that big honkin mana pool you now have - and any damage you take 30% of it will come from your mana pool (thus only 70% is coming from your HP). This is assuming you have mana there to take from. So this keystone makes two other stats extremely important: +Mana and + Mana Regeneration. Ideally (which I am not even at) you maintain a 7/3 ratio of HP/Mana which would give you the max possible effective life via a single hit. But the more mana you have up to that level the more damage against your HP you can be saved. And what happens when you get hit? You lose mana - which is why mana regenration is perhaps the builds most important stat. Because once you are hit you want to gain that mana back as fast as possible so you have as much as possible to save you from your next hit - at the same time you are using it on very expensive abilities.

So the core stuff you want to look for on gear are:

EV/ES based gear
HP
Resistances Capped
+2 Minions on Helm
+ES +Mana +Mana Regen

Useful Unqiues:
Silverbranch can be used all of the way to 64 as long as your Poison Arrow gem is leveled appropriately for the area. Just be sure to sick your zombies on totems.

Carcass Jack is the only piece of equipment that can actually help offensively - adding a little damage and poison cloud aoe radius. It's very good for the build, and doesn't need to be a 5L as your poison arrow doesn't go in it.

Atziri's Foible (crappton of mana and mana regen) or Sidhebreath if you don't have Atziri's

For the start of the game just link Poison Arrow > Faster Projectiles. As mana and gem ownage allows add Concentrated Effect and Empower. You may need to buy a level 1 Empower and level it in your off-slot, getting level 2 at some point for early-mid endgame. Slower Projectiles and Culling Strike also add poison cloud damage and can be used with or in replace of any of the above. Increased Area of effect, while not adding damage, can also help. So you can mix and match those based on the number of links you have available to you - and availability.

And lastly - your bow. While you may not be able to afford a +2/+1, +2 (SharpShooter prefix) is a 64 mod. So, literally, all you need to do once you are 64 is pick a bow of your choice off the ground and toss a few alts on it - shouldn't take more than a few stacks you will will have yourself a a nice upgrade. Or you could just buy a +2 yellow bow at any point, a lot of which can be found very cheaply if the other stats (which are irrelevant to you) suck.

30 PTS - Get Ondar's and next to MoM

80 PTS - to EB< then MoM

1. Gem Level
2. Increased Chaos Damage (tree, qualitied Added Chaos,Cherrubim's Maleficence)
3. Increased Damage over time (tree)
4. Increased Projectile Damage (tree, Rearguard,Drillneck,Faster/Slower Projectiles)
5. Increased Area Damage (Concentrated Effect, Carcass Jack, tree)*
6. Increased Damage (Culling Strike, LeHeup)

* It works but does not display correctly in the tooltip

The 6 categories are right, a few of the specific examples may have slipped my mind so no guarantee it's all inclusive.

I keep getting PM's about how I calculate Poison arrow DPS - so I will add it here, and then update it into the main post once I complete all of my 1.2 Enhancements. Also of note is that this is not some DPS shenanigans where people have LMP, and multiply their DPS by 3 or something like that. Poison Arrow's cloud tooltip does not accurately show anything with an "Area" tag into the cloud damage. This is most commonly Concentrated Effect (more) and Carcass Jack (increased). It has been verified by GGG that they do impact the cloud damage, just do not show in the tooltip. For some odd reason, since the on hit effect of Poison Arrow isn't Area damage, they cannot visibly display the secondary effect accurately. Much like Lightning Strike or Molten Strike tooltips don't display the projectile damage.

But it's easy to verify and confirm GGG's statement it works despite tooltip limitations - Concentrated Effect is so strong that the increased damage is easily visible despite no tooltip change. So what I calculate is simply how the tooltip would read if it wasn't erroneously missing any added area damage. To calculate you need:

-Current displayed tooltip DPS
-Base PA Gem damage (hover over gem while it's equipped so it has the impact of any + levels)
-missing increased area modifiers
-missing more increased area modifiers

In my current case - these are my numbers

-11,339.8 Tooltip
-2,250 Level 28 Gem Base
- 24% (12 from Carcass Jack, 12 from Blast Radius passive)
-70% (level 21 Concentrated Effect - it gets an extra level from the +1 in the bow)

The calculation is:

[(Missing Increased Modifiers x Base gem damage)+Displayed Tooltip DPS]*(1+Missing More Modifiers)

For me:

[(.24*2250)+(11339.8)]*1.7

20,195.66 DPS

Normal - help Oak for HP
Cruel - kill all for skill point
Merciless - kill all for skill point

Well rolled flasks that fill in defensive gaps are extremely important for any build's survive-ability. Because of my abundance of mana I use sapping prefixes for healing flasks - these sapping rolls are now legacy they nerfed to 40% when they released new flasks. Without the legacy sapping rolls, I'd probably use the new flasks.

- Healing/Bleed
- Healing/Freeze
- Mandatory run baby tun
- +Evasion while also giving armor
- Lightning Resist and Warding

For a long time I used a Jade instead of that Granite, but I like Granite' 2x use better, and while it doesn't give me as much added Evasion, it's a nice spike that also pops some Armor on. But it must have the Evasion roll on it. A Jade with Armor does not work since the build has no base armor for the % to scale while the Granite adds flat Armour.

All of my builds use either a Topaz or Ruby of Warding flask, and my phys crit build actually carries one of each and swaps it on depending on the map. I have chosen Topaz for this build since AA eats a little fire.